Back to You(98)

Lauren laughed. “And it used to be you that was being consoled.”
“Yeah, well. That’s because I was always the f*ck-up.”
“No, it was because you always dated whores.”
Michael smiled half-heartedly, looking down at his glass. “Not all of them were.”
She turned her head to look at him, realizing how offensive that last comment must have been. One of those women had been the mother of his child.
“Will you tell me about Erin’s mom?” she asked softly.
Michael licked his lips, his eyes still on his glass. “There’s not that much to tell. Her name’s Samantha. I met her at a party. She was a friend of a friend and we just…clicked,” he said, lifting his glass and taking a long sip.
When he didn’t continue, Lauren said, “So what happened?”
He turned toward her with his brow quirked. “Aren’t we supposed to be talking about you?”
When Lauren just looked at him expectantly, he sighed.
“We were dating for about six months before she got pregnant. She was twenty-one at the time, and she didn’t want to keep it.” Michael raked his teeth over his bottom lip before he said, “But I convinced her to. I didn’t ne@, and she "> shouldered something else to regret. I was twenty-four years old. Definitely old enough to face the consequences of my actions instead of taking the easy way out.”
Lauren kept her eyes on him as she took another sip of her wine.
“Obviously, she agreed to keep the baby,” he said, playing with the stem of his glass. “But that was the beginning of the end for us. I think she resented me for convincing her.”
He took another long sip before he said, “A few months later, she tells me that she’s getting back with her ex. I guess they’d rekindled their relationship while ours was going down the shitter.”
Lauren frowned, and Michael looked over at her.
“He didn’t want another man’s baby. Of course he didn’t,” he said with a hollow laugh. “I know all too well how that story ends.”
Lauren dropped her eyes, chewing on the inside of her lip.
“She tried to get an abortion, but no doctor would do it that far along in her pregnancy. So she had the baby, and she gave her to me. Signed over her rights in the hospital.”
Then he tilted his head back, draining the last of his wine before he reached for the bottle and filled his glass again.
Lauren stared at him, her throat suddenly feeling tight. She pictured him at twenty-four years old, coming home with a newborn, completely alone. No wife, no girlfriend, not even his mother to turn to for guidance. Going strictly by doctors’ advice and parenting books.
Her heart felt like it was breaking in her chest.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, she felt it harden.
“Did you love her?”
Michael looked up at her. “Samantha?”
Lauren nodded.
He sighed. “Yeah. In my own way, I did. Or at least I thought I did. But after she left Erin, I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
Lauren pursed her lips, nodding slowly as she looked down. He loved Samantha. He gave himself to girls like that all the time.
But he’d walked away from her.
And suddenly, it was as raw as if it had happened yesterday.
Without warning, everything she’d been bottling for years came rushing to the surface.
She was furious.
Furious that she couldn’t have a real relationship because of him. Furious that she’d gotten in a fight with her best friend because of him. Furious that Jenn was right, that she probably just ruined another good thing because of her goddamn feelings for him.
And it wasn’t about closure. It wasn’t about answers. It wasn’t about getting her friend back.
It was about finally getting to stand up for herself, after all this time.
“You loved her,” she said. “She was a shitty person, and you loved her.”
He kept his eyes straight ahead, but Lauren watched his shoulders rise as he inhaled a deep breath.
“You did it over and over,” she said with paper-thin restraint. “Gave your heart to these worthless girls.” She took a breath before she said the words she’d been waiting almost nine years to say. “So what was wrong with me?”
Michael closed his eyes and dropped his head, nodding slowly. “You know, for the past few months, I’ve been going back and forth between wishing we could just have this conversation a@, and she "> shouldernd praying we never would.”
“What was wrong with me, Michael? Why did you walk away from me like that?”
She watched him put his glass of wine on the floor before pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbing roughly.